Adam B. Cooper - PowerPoint® Presentations That Sell

POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS THAT SELL

ADAM B. COOPER Copyright 2009 by Adam Cooper. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978-0-07-162939-3 MHID: 0-07-162939-4 The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: ISBN: 978-0-07-162680-4, MHID: 0-07-162680-8. All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners.

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McGraw-Hill has no responsibility for the content of any information accessed through the work. Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill and/or its licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, consequential or similar damages that result from the use of or inability to use the work, even if any of them has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This limitation of liability shall apply to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim or cause arises in contract, tort or otherwise. To Mom, Dad, and my Anna

I never thought this project, which started out as a few notes jotted down during a flight to Guatemala, would result in a published book. Had it not been for the support and encouragement of colleagues, friends, and family, it would not have happened. I would first like to thank the team at McGraw-Hill for keeping an open mind about writing an entire book as an actual PowerPoint presentation (I think its a first!).

In particular, a great thanks to my editing team of Donya Dickerson and Pattie Amoroso for guiding me through the entire editing process and always being open and honest with me. Im extremely grateful to my colleague Gene Zelazny. This book would not exist without his encouragement. A great thanks for providing guidance on numerous rounds of my manuscript. I would not have made it through this process without his mentorship. A very special thanks to my friends Serge Grossman for reviewing my manuscript on multiple occasions, and to Mike Ehrenberg for offering his opinions and ideas on the books content and for navigating the publishing process.

Many thanks also to Lindsey Engel, Kim Myers, and Scott Schuman for providing their ideas. I owe thanks most of all to my parents, Bob and Eileen, and my love, Anna. Mom, Dad, thank you so much for being there for me at all hours, supporting everything I do without hesitation, and offering the simplest of encouragement: just do your best. Anna, thank you for putting up with me getting up at odd hours when inspiration hit and for just being greatlove you always.

Experience can be a double-edged sword. In the work-place, it is often what you need to gain confidence in using a specific tool such as a business system or more traditional software such as Microsoft PowerPoint.

However, gaining experience takes time, and time is at a premium in todays workplace, where things are expected to be delivered faster with a leaner staff and fewer training resources available to employees. This book seeks to close the experience gap and bring you up to speed on the fundamentals of using PowerPoint and other similar presentation products to sell your ideas more effectively. This book will give you a set of simple techniques to plan, design, and deliver presentations that get results and get you noticed among your peers and managers. You do not need to have experience with PowerPoint to pick up this book and immediately put its lessons to use. This book is written from the perspective of someone giving advice over your shoulder to serve as a guiding hand as you begin to organize your projects activities and then ultimately create a PowerPoint presentation. Regardless of what part of an organization you belong to or are considering joining, you can use this book at any stage of a project and learn slide structuring techniques and speed shortcut tips that are instantly applicable.

The book offers both conceptual and tactical approaches to plan, design, and deliver presentations that get results (see ). As you can see in , the pages in the rest of the book after this introduction are written as an actual PowerPoint presentation. This reinforces the books recommendations on every single page (the book practices what it preaches). I believe it is easier to learn new ideas when they are in the form of the desired end product. Thus, it is easier to learn about creating better presentations by using a book written as a presentation.

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